Wise Action, My Experience & Philosophy
I’ve spent my career as a medical leader developing sustainable systems that provide compassionate care for all. Too often, we focus on one issue such as quality, or value, or customer service, and the others suffer. Any sustainable system must be able to simultaneously respond to all of our priorities in a balanced approach.
My philosophy is going for a win for everyone. Wise action begins with a deep understanding of everyone's interests and is followed by implementing solutions that reward what we all value. I will deploy a satisfaction survey that allows for feedback on every interaction that every member of the public has with the city. The results will be used for improvements in every city department, with department heads held accountable for ongoing improvement in the public’s satisfaction. Our city will also survey the public on their satisfaction with the city and all aspects of life to help guide policy decisions to ensure all people’s needs are equally met.
My philosophy is going for a win for everyone. Wise action begins with a deep understanding of everyone's interests and is followed by implementing solutions that reward what we all value. I will deploy a satisfaction survey that allows for feedback on every interaction that every member of the public has with the city. The results will be used for improvements in every city department, with department heads held accountable for ongoing improvement in the public’s satisfaction. Our city will also survey the public on their satisfaction with the city and all aspects of life to help guide policy decisions to ensure all people’s needs are equally met.
What I Will Do
If you want more of what you're getting, vote for my opponents who brought it to you. Vote for the candidate who brings in the most campaign money. If you want lasting solutions based on an understanding of the actual causes of our problems, vote for Doctor Bliss. I will make our city safe by removing tent dwellers from city parks and city streets. I will protect our civil rights by nullifying any section of the police union contract that limits accountability and oversight. And I will provide real medical treatment and real housing solutions for those who have nowhere else to go.
I believe that I am the most qualified candidate to manage our pressing medical issues of addiction and mental illness that drive homelessness in our city, the one who will make our city streets safe, the one who will bring us real affordable housing, and the one who is most likely to finally bring us constitutional community policing. While many of the other mayoral candidates focus on one or two of these issues, I believe I am the only candidate who is firmly committed to doing all of these things.
I believe that I am the most qualified candidate to manage our pressing medical issues of addiction and mental illness that drive homelessness in our city, the one who will make our city streets safe, the one who will bring us real affordable housing, and the one who is most likely to finally bring us constitutional community policing. While many of the other mayoral candidates focus on one or two of these issues, I believe I am the only candidate who is firmly committed to doing all of these things.
Unwise Action & Un-Affordable Housing
Repeatedly, I have observed our city leaders reacting to problems without understanding them, then making our problems worse rather than better. Our city leaders say they want more affordable housing. Elected officials pay back developer campaign donations with friendly zoning laws and ordinances that tear down affordable housing and replace it with million dollar townhomes and tiny condos that cost $400,000. They can’t see how they contribute to the failure of affordable housing with their zoning laws and ordinances, and instead make the problem worse with legislation to outlaw eviction of people who can’t pay their rent - but don’t fund it. This unfunded short-term compassionate re-action punishes landlords who provide affordable housing, especially the local small businesses who cannot afford a tenant who does not pay rent for 6 months. It sends them a message to get out of the rental business.
Now there is even less affordable housing, and a strong discouragement of development of new affordable housing. Would you invest your life savings in affordable housing if you knew there was a strong chance your tenants would not pay the rent for 6 months out of the year?
If we want affordable housing, we need to make different choices based on a deep understanding of our system. Our city leader’s reactions to the lack of affordable housing has given us less affordable housing, not more. This is why I am running for mayor. We need to reward and protect small businesses, including landlords who provide affordable housing, not punish them. I can fix this problem.
Now there is even less affordable housing, and a strong discouragement of development of new affordable housing. Would you invest your life savings in affordable housing if you knew there was a strong chance your tenants would not pay the rent for 6 months out of the year?
If we want affordable housing, we need to make different choices based on a deep understanding of our system. Our city leader’s reactions to the lack of affordable housing has given us less affordable housing, not more. This is why I am running for mayor. We need to reward and protect small businesses, including landlords who provide affordable housing, not punish them. I can fix this problem.
Unwise Action & Homelessness
Our city council’s decision to allow living in tents and encouraging theft and vandalism as a way to solve the homeless problem is giving us more of what we don’t want. Our city leaders react to the problem of people living in city tents by blaming the rising cost of real estate. When we view tent dwellers as victims of rising housing prices, we fail to see that the primary cause of homelessness are medical problems that require medical solutions. Believing our tent dwellers have no other options, the city takes a further step of not arresting and not charging these people for criminal offenses. This is followed by proposing legislation promoting criminal behavior as a way to meet basic needs. The latest reaction is to enshrine tent living in city parks as a permanent solution, with permanent structures and protections proposed, because our city continually fails to understand the problem and provide appropriate solutions. I can fix that.
Addiction
Any person who presents an immediate danger to themself or others or who is gravely disabled can and should be legally involuntarily detained for treatment. Instead, we release them because we do not have beds. We must have treatment beds if we are to solve this problem.
Those with addiction who do not present an immediate danger to themselves or others are free to refuse treatment. Just because a person refuses drug treatment does not mean we have to enable them in their addiction. That is not good for anyone. . When we follow our moral and legal responsibility to provide a safe place that has real limits with restrictions on who comes and goes and what is brought in and out, we remove this default right to live in public spaces. Those who choose their addiction over public safety can l be held accountable for their actions just like we would for ourselves and anyone else. We must stop enabling addicts in their addiction.
From an addicted person's perspective, prior to 2019, living in city parks led to jail terms that limited their ability to support their addiction, so they would find other solutions themselves whenever possible. Now we are offering permanent free housing on prime Seattle park real estate with a get out of jail free card for stealing from our homes and businesses to meet their needs - including their addiction. The combination of free housing, no expectations, and no consequences is an open invitation for more people with addictions to move onto our public lands. And now that this practice has become an accepted way of living, others who want free housing are also moving in. Each day that we fail to provide medical treatment in a safe and controlled environment makes our homeless, addiction, crime, graffiti and trash problem bigger and our public spaces smaller. Just as some cities built emergency treatment facilities for the COVID pandemic, we can build emergency treatment facilities to manage our addiction and mental health crisis and deal with the backlog of treatment caused by years of failed reactions.
Those with addiction who do not present an immediate danger to themselves or others are free to refuse treatment. Just because a person refuses drug treatment does not mean we have to enable them in their addiction. That is not good for anyone. . When we follow our moral and legal responsibility to provide a safe place that has real limits with restrictions on who comes and goes and what is brought in and out, we remove this default right to live in public spaces. Those who choose their addiction over public safety can l be held accountable for their actions just like we would for ourselves and anyone else. We must stop enabling addicts in their addiction.
From an addicted person's perspective, prior to 2019, living in city parks led to jail terms that limited their ability to support their addiction, so they would find other solutions themselves whenever possible. Now we are offering permanent free housing on prime Seattle park real estate with a get out of jail free card for stealing from our homes and businesses to meet their needs - including their addiction. The combination of free housing, no expectations, and no consequences is an open invitation for more people with addictions to move onto our public lands. And now that this practice has become an accepted way of living, others who want free housing are also moving in. Each day that we fail to provide medical treatment in a safe and controlled environment makes our homeless, addiction, crime, graffiti and trash problem bigger and our public spaces smaller. Just as some cities built emergency treatment facilities for the COVID pandemic, we can build emergency treatment facilities to manage our addiction and mental health crisis and deal with the backlog of treatment caused by years of failed reactions.
Theft to Meet Basic Needs
People who use theft to support their addiction cannot be placed safely in any normal housing environment. This is the reason the cities surrounding Seattle have passed laws forbidding us from placing our homeless in their hotels. People who live in public spaces have demonstrated that they are unable to care for themselves and we need to help by opening permanent self-contained residential treatment facilities specifically for our Seattle homeless residents that provide medical, psychiatric, and addiction treatment, as well as housing, personal growth, education, work, and eventually independence. Residential treatment facilities for medical problems, eating disorders, psychiatric illnesses and drug use all require a controlled environment to be effective, and this is true for managing the addicted individuals and individuals suffering from mental illness among our homeless population as well.
Our Legal Mandate
I do not intend for our city to pay for rehabilitation and housing for everyone who wants to move to Seattle and live in a tent. Our treatment programs should be for those who have been residents of our city before becoming homeless. Non-residents will be given the opportunity to return to their home city.
While I intend to have emergency capacity for everyone living outside in public places, I anticipate that more than half will decline to voluntarily enter a treatment program and will choose to pursue other options. That is a choice and we will respect it. However, if a person who refuses a safe place is found again living on public lands, it will then be up to the courts to determine what to do.
While I intend to have emergency capacity for everyone living outside in public places, I anticipate that more than half will decline to voluntarily enter a treatment program and will choose to pursue other options. That is a choice and we will respect it. However, if a person who refuses a safe place is found again living on public lands, it will then be up to the courts to determine what to do.
Who Pays?
People also ask how can our city afford to pay for this? I personally spent roughly $5,000 on three incidents of vandalism and theft in the last year. You may have a similar experience. This is money that could have gone to support real treatment and rehabilitation efforts. If we do not do the right thing and invest in our people, we will all pay anyway.
There are Local, State and Federal funds available that our City Leaders have left ignored. Our city council leader’s reactions to our homeless problem continue to create more homelessness, not less. Each day that we wait escalates our problem. Now is the time to act. This is why I am running for mayor. We need to provide a safe city for everybody.
There are Local, State and Federal funds available that our City Leaders have left ignored. Our city council leader’s reactions to our homeless problem continue to create more homelessness, not less. Each day that we wait escalates our problem. Now is the time to act. This is why I am running for mayor. We need to provide a safe city for everybody.
Defunding the Police
Defunding the police is another reactive idea that is giving us more of what we don’t want. The city council has already shifted funds from police. Now all of us are victims of rising crime and delayed 911 response times.
Defunding the police is a political re-action. This kind of thinking goes that if we don’t have police, we won’t have police abuses. It misses the fact that we have criminals perpetrating civil rights abuses on us , just as we did in the latter days of CHOP. Defunding the police doesn’t lead to fewer civil rights abuses, it leads to more, especially among our poor and most vulnerable. The wealthy are now buying private security. Who will protect our poor and minority neighborhoods? Defunding the police is reactive and irresponsible. We need constitutional policing that responds to community needs. Our city leader’s reactions to lack of police accountability have created more civil rights abuses, not less. This is why I am running for mayor. We need accountable police. We need accountable city leaders.
Defunding the police is a political re-action. This kind of thinking goes that if we don’t have police, we won’t have police abuses. It misses the fact that we have criminals perpetrating civil rights abuses on us , just as we did in the latter days of CHOP. Defunding the police doesn’t lead to fewer civil rights abuses, it leads to more, especially among our poor and most vulnerable. The wealthy are now buying private security. Who will protect our poor and minority neighborhoods? Defunding the police is reactive and irresponsible. We need constitutional policing that responds to community needs. Our city leader’s reactions to lack of police accountability have created more civil rights abuses, not less. This is why I am running for mayor. We need accountable police. We need accountable city leaders.
How Much Time Do We Have?
There is a kind of naïveté that believes that our good fortune in our city is endless. It is not. If we do not take care of our city, people and businesses will leave, just as they are doing in California. If we do not take care of our city and each other, our unemployment will rise, our property values will fall, and our tax base will dwindle. Each day that we wait is a missed opportunity. We have a responsibility to take care of our city and all Seattleites. This is why I am running for mayor.
Our city needs a leader who understands that our homeless problem will never be solved by more affordable housing. If we want more affordable housing we need to build it, not tear it down, and we need to reward those who provide affordable housing, not punish them. The homeless problem is rooted in addiction and mental illness. These are medical problems that need medical solutions. We need a leader with experience creating medical systems that work for all. A leader who will provide our homeless population with real options for treatment, housing, and hope, and will end the fiasco of tent living in city parks. And, we need a city leader who will hold resolutely onto our civil rights, not someone who talks about community policing and police accountability, and then approves the 2018 police union contract that ignores community input and takes away police accountability. That is why I am running for mayor! The City of Seattle has been found guilty of violating our citizens civil rights repeatedly since 2012. Our city council leaders who are now running for mayor have had 9 years to resolve this issue. Do you think 9 years was enough time? Do you think we should give them 4 more years and see what happens?
We need someone who acts wisely, rather than reactively. We need someone who doesn’t have to sell off our civil rights to pay for campaign debts and endorsements. We need someone who is able to lead, not just follow the money. I am that person. That is why I am running for mayor.
Join me in Solidarity. Vote for wise action. Vote Dr. Bliss for Mayor. I would be honored to have your vote.
Our city needs a leader who understands that our homeless problem will never be solved by more affordable housing. If we want more affordable housing we need to build it, not tear it down, and we need to reward those who provide affordable housing, not punish them. The homeless problem is rooted in addiction and mental illness. These are medical problems that need medical solutions. We need a leader with experience creating medical systems that work for all. A leader who will provide our homeless population with real options for treatment, housing, and hope, and will end the fiasco of tent living in city parks. And, we need a city leader who will hold resolutely onto our civil rights, not someone who talks about community policing and police accountability, and then approves the 2018 police union contract that ignores community input and takes away police accountability. That is why I am running for mayor! The City of Seattle has been found guilty of violating our citizens civil rights repeatedly since 2012. Our city council leaders who are now running for mayor have had 9 years to resolve this issue. Do you think 9 years was enough time? Do you think we should give them 4 more years and see what happens?
We need someone who acts wisely, rather than reactively. We need someone who doesn’t have to sell off our civil rights to pay for campaign debts and endorsements. We need someone who is able to lead, not just follow the money. I am that person. That is why I am running for mayor.
Join me in Solidarity. Vote for wise action. Vote Dr. Bliss for Mayor. I would be honored to have your vote.